Analysis Does Not Have to Mean Paralysis

Back in November in Iowa Biz there was a blog entry titled Please Make A Decision. The basic premise of the post was a call to action to actually make a decision and stop suffering from "analysis paralysis. On the surface, pretty good advice. But dig a little deeper, and that post is really encouraging people to follow their typical human distaste for uncertainty and make a decision without the benefit of the relevant information. So can there be a middle ground?

You bet. It is neatly summed up by the concept of Real Options, described neatly by my friend Chris Matts with these three simple points:

• Options have value.
• Options expire.
• Never commit early unless you know why.

Said another way, it's okay to defer making a decision in order to gather as much relevant information as possible as long as you make the decision before the value you can derive from the various options starts to decrease or goes away all together. Often when people suffer from Analysis Paralysis, what they have really done is delayed making a decision past the expiration date of the option. It's about gathering the right amount of information to make the appropriate decision, but not spending so much time on information gathering that you loose the opportunity to gain value from the decision.